Every so often I will link to an article from “Stepchild,” a former IMB overseas missionary who’s blog is titled “Missions Misunderstood.”  He will frequently expound some of the best stuff around that deserves your attention.

It’s that time again.

Everyone A Missionary?

At Skelly, we call us “Servant Messengers” instead of “Missionaries” because one is descriptive and the other carries baggage.  Anyway…

I intend for this to be the last post specifically on the trip from March 2009.  If you haven’t seen all of the posts and pics, you can find them listed on the Vietnam page.

Really good lessons learned that will shape us over the next decade as we continue to engage those who the Lord has set before us.  Some simple.  Some profound.

Book your own travel.  9 hour layovers happen when the travel agent makes sure you run through the airline that gets her the best kick back.

Get in shape.  For so many reasons, being unhealthy runs counter to spread of the Gospel.  People don’t respect obesity around the world.  Obesity hurts your ability to do very strenuous things, like travel the globe and hike up a mountain in North Vietnam to examine a water source and filtration system.  By God’s grace, I had made a shift prior to my attempt at the latter this year, but that stands in stark contrast to my experience last year.

Tighten your focus.  We did many things this year and all of them were good.  there was nothing that was not worthy of our time and attention.  Nevertheless, our goal necessitates building relationships and jumping from one project to another keeps us from giving the time that is necessary for us to do that.  As a result, good things will have to go so that the best things flourish.

The church is the missionary.  I am the church.  The denominationalism that spread throughout America has created a sense of laziness among our church members.  One of the many reasons that churches across America are dying is that they are not engaged beyond sending a dose of money for someone else to do the hard work.  Supporting people remaining on the ground is a good thing.  Going there yourself is also good, and a much more healthy thing for the individual and the collective.  Both are necessary.

I’m in the San Francisco airport and I’m noticing so many different attitudes – in those around us and (most disturbingly) in myself.

While moving through security, a man wanted past one of our teens and cursed them under his breath as he went by.  This may have happened in Vietnam, but mostly everyone just made their way through and around everyone else.  Jimmy overheard the guy and asked him, “Kinda grumpy arencha?”  The man never paused or turned.

The flip side is the selfishness that I’ve found myself experiencing.  We’ve got a really bad layout for our flight schedule.  Our travel agent is based in Dallas/Ft. Worth and so she routed us through there, even though we asked to be routed through Denver (direct flights to Tulsa) which would have dropped a leg off our journey, presumably saving us money and TIME.

While in Vietnam, I was frequently asked to adjust schedules and do things to accomodate others and it was no problem.  My mindset was that I was there to serve and I was happy to do so.

Now I’m in San Francisco and the desire to serve has been replaced by the desire to be served.  My aggravation over the travel plans is cumbersome.

It’s not that I should accept the situation passively and without question.  We hired her to do a job and she didn’t do it as well as she could have, so we are going to look elsewhere for better performance.  That’s not wrong.

My consternation with my own attitude stems from the reality that I sense a sinful and selfish attitude within.  There’s a difference in wanting more for my money and having some sense of entitlement that reveals my wicked heart.

How is it that I can turn off and on the desire to serve?  What makes me think that there are times to serve and times when I am to be served?  I’m grateful that Jesus did not demand to be served at all times He was worthy of it, but yielded His rights and poured Himself out as a servant.  From His service to the Father, I am redeemed.

I have such a long way to go.

I’m sitting in a taxi, in rush hour Hanoi traffic on Wednesday afternoon heading home from Bonnie’s first day of teaching at the University.  The windows are down and we are in a tangle of traffic heading in every conceivable direction.  Most of them are scooters.  Some of them are cars, probably taxis.  A few of them are busses.  All of them are honking.  None of them are moving.

I love it.

At home, this drives me nuts, but here I relish it.  It reminds me that I am where I am and why I am here.

So, as I relished that moment, it occurred to me to share with you a few of my favorite things from this trip and from Vietnam.

“I wish they understood me better.  They would love me.” – said by my wife in regards to the language barrier as she taught at the University.

Walking down a side street in Hanoi with 13 year old Casey Strong and discussing how he was experiencing something that none of his friends had ever come close to, and probably would never get to do.

Learning the complex intricacies of engagement from the Forefront Church team and being awed by their servant nature.  Being grateful for brothers and sisters whose service had opened doors for us so that we reaped the fruits of their labor.

Being reminded of the material blessings I enjoy in comparison to those in real need.  Realizing that those material blessings can be a curse in a million different ways.

Taking a team half full of teenagers – our young leaders – to a completely new place and experience.  Helping them to experience service and, hopefully, learn to be a new person.

Forming new relationships and learning from my Vietnamese friends.

Making a real difference in the lives of children in a remote part of the world.

Being generous to college students who are hungry for more than just western food: We  gave them pizza, conversation, friendship, education, respect and more.

Sacrificing for the privilege of serving.  It conforms my wicked heart into the shape of my Lord.

Let’s be honest.  Foot massages.  I’m completely addicted.  I won’t pay $35 at home for the exact same thing, but while here I will readily give up $6 for an hour of relaxing physical manipulation.  I’ve corrupted my wife and Casey Strong, but Jimmy and Denna Strong resist with a convincing resolve.

Using chopsticks.  My friends say I’m a natural, but I need more practice.

Living the Gospel. Having my heart broken.  Being uncomfortable.  Serving God across the world with my wife. Speaking eternal truth without the driving need to count the person opposite.  Watching God at work.  Being awed that He would use a completely flawed person like myself.

Just a couple of pics of Hanoi scooter traffic from the back of my taxi.  You can see more of them at flickr or my photoblog.

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GVI has had a long standing relationship with the HUE (Hanoi University of Education – or University of Hanoi).  GVI has made real inroads through the Department of Special Education by bringing in experts in dealing with the issue of Autism, which is very important to the Vietnamese government and Ministry of Education.

As a result, this was a gateway for Bonnie, who has a BA in Mathematics Education and a MA in Education Administration and is currently serving as a Curriculum Resource Instructor for Math and Science – helping math and science teachers to teach better.  The Department of Special Education invited all education students to a two day seminar on the subject of Differentiation in Education.

I went along for moral and technical support – which is a good thing, I suppose, since I had to handle a lot of technical issues for her without asking for assistance through a language barrier.

She also loved it when I called her “Professor.”

That’s a joke.  She was very nervous and I almost got in trouble because I kept doing it.

The truth is, she is a phenomenal educator and has forgotten more about education theory and practice than most teachers will ever know.

The big upside is the relationships she is building with the students.  She passed out business cards to all the students with her email address and asked them all to feel free to communicate with her in the future.  Her sense of humor and desire to have fun is contagious, even with the language barriers and the students love her.

Best quote:  “I just wish they understood me.  They would love me.”

I think they already love us, but that may have something to do with the fact that we bought them all pizza.  They had never had it before and most of them really loved it.  They wanted to know where to get it – which is fascinating, because it is everywhere in Hanoi.

It also gave me the opportunity to have conversations on America and the west.  I have to tell you that it was very revealing to me about how they perceived us.  We studied different aspects of America in practicing some teaching styles and I was available to answer questions about America – which is where their perceptions really came out.

Most revealing question:  “How do you feel about America since it recently presented a ‘Strong Face’ to the world, but since the economy has fallen, America’s ‘face’ in weaker or diminished.”

Here are my pics.  You can see more of them at flickr or my photoblog.

Click on a thumbnail for a bigger picture.

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Getting ready for the night train back to Hanoi, we went early to Lao Cai City so that we could be at the train station in plenty of time.  We went to the China border, ate a little food, took a couple of pictures of a HUGE cobra fermenting on a bar and got on the train.

Yeah, they sell the liquor from the decaying cobra as “Snake Wine” and it’s expensive.  No, there is now way in…  you know.  I didn’t even think of trying it.

Here are my pics.  You can see more of them at flickr or my photoblog.

Click on a thumbnail for a bigger picture.

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I have several posts written and will be stting them to drop over the next couple of days as we travel home.  Thanks for your constant prayers.

Lao Chai School

On Tuesday morning, our team went to Lao Chai School to install another computer lab.  This lab was paid for by a team from Northwood (I think) that was to come and install it last November, but the weather prevented them from making it.  I was confused as to how the weather could be that bad, but then I found that we had to hike with the equipment over rocky terrain with a creek running across it for about half a mile.  That was hard with good weather and, apparently, it had snowed there in November.

Lao Chai – not to be confused with Lao Cai province or city – is a tourist destination.  People hike there from SaPa through the mountains and the people that live there are the Mong.  Different than the Hmong, but pronounced similarly to the American ear.

The tourism is a double edged sword.  On the one hand it provides some boost to the local economy, which is very necessary.  On the other hand, it objectifies everyone in each other’s eyes.

To the tourists, the Mong people exist as an object of curiosity and entertainment.  They take pictures of them living their lives and to the tourist, the Mong exist for their personal fascination.

To the Mong, outsiders exist only to buy their handicrafts and to support them financially, so all outsiders exist only to support them.

The obvious problem is that all of this creates barriers to relationship and real conversation.  The children in the school are used to outsiders coming through and taking their pictures while they take class and then leaving.  As a result, they are very shy when people show up from outside and want to begin building a real relationship and help them only to help them.

People who want to bless them and ask nothing in return are completely new.  They really don’t know what to do with us.

The school there is an elementary school and they oversee the four other schools in the region.  I suppose that they are so far back in the mountains, we never saw them.

My wife, the teaching expert from America (visiting professor at the University of Hanoi – more on that later) said that she found tremendous teaching skills in the classrooms here – far better than San Sa Ho.  She said that there was one teacher teaching complex math to second graders using differentiation that was particularly impressive.  Bonnie said she would have hired her to teach in America immediately.

I suppose the undercurrent of that statement is that this teacher she found on the backside of a mountain in Vietnam in the shadow of the China border was better than some (many?) of the highly paid (in comparison to Vietnamese standards), highly educated teachers in one of Oklahoma’s premier school districts.

Here are my pics (all of them).  You can see more of them at flickr or my photoblog.

Click on a thumbnail for a bigger picture.

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Forefront Church out of Virginia has paved the way for many churches as they engage communities in the mountains around SaPa.  They are the ones who originally engaged Ta Phin and the school there to create a clean water source, computer lab and now they are paving the school yard there.

We worked with them on Monday afternoon, but, of course, I forgot my camera.  We helped move dirt and rocks, dug ditches and were generally amazed.  We are still learning from them how to engage these communities.  Here are some of their ideas that have stuck:

Everyone that comes over from their team buys the exact same t-shirt with their logo on it and wears it over their work clothes every day.  This way the people come to recognize them and who they are, even if it is their first time to Vietnam.

They employ local people to help build the projects they are working on.  This stimulates the local economy and improves quality of life and gives the members of the community ownership in the success and preservation of the project.

They work alongside the locals to build whatever project they are working on.  This amazes the people because the impression they have been left with previously is that the foriegners come in, drop money on them, take pictures and leave never to return.  Obviously, they get the impression that certain people really care about them and certain people don’t.

They’ve adopted one particular community and focused on it to the point where they desire to exhaustively serve that people group.  This has built a steady relationship and thrown open doors around the area with communities that are desirous of a similar relationship with us and other GVI partner churches.

They’ve not paid for everything, but found local partners to participate and join their water project, which has created a sense of ownership and protection of the water line, in particular.  The community even has a person who’s job it is to maintain and secure the water line leading to the community.

Skelly Drive contributed enough money to buy a computer lab, er… two computers and a printer with a network hub for print sharing… and we went there as soon as we got in to SaPa.  This place is on the backside of a mountain.  From Hanoi, we traveled 8 hours by train overnight and then an hour by van up the mountain to SaPa.  From there, we drove another half hour further into what can only be called “rural” to a place populated by “black” Hmong people and the school the Government provides them.

The Hmong people divide themselves by color grouping and we have an affinity to the “Black” Hmong because we had a church of that tribe meeting in our building until last year when they moved to their own facility.

We met with the kids, observed classes and spent the evening building relationships with the staff of the school.  Forefront church, working through GVI (Glocal Ventures, Inc.) has made incredible ground in their work with Ta Phin school nearby.  I told of them last year.

Because of their reputation, doors to relationships are flying open for us.  We were at two schools in two days and both of them were asking us to come back to help them.

Without any further ado, here are the pics from the morning (click on a thumbnail for the larger picture):

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We are back in Hanoi after riding the night train back from Sapa.  We are showering and getting on fresh clothes.  The group is splitting into three assignments from here:

Bonnie and I are going to the University of Hanoi for her to teach a two day seminar on education principles.  As I mentioned before, education is being taken very seriously here in Vietnam and this is the highest profile thing that we are doing on this trip to open doors for future partnerships.  I’ll tell you more about the two schools we helped in SaPa in a later post, but the education aspect ties in at al times here in Vietnam.

Selena is going with Denna and Emily to meet with a governmant organization that assists the blind. Selena is President of the Oklahoma Federation OF the Blind (not FOR the blind) and they are meeting with officials to explore future partnership opportunities with them.

Jimmy and the rest of the boys are headed to SS4 this morning.  You might remember that this is one of the orphanages that we visited last year.  They will be taking sports equipment, playing games, building relationships and, I believe, doing some painting.  Tomorrow they will visit two other orphanages – SS3 from last year, but also Burla which is new for us to work with – and doing similar things there.

While Bonnie is teaching I will be writing and processing pictures (and taking some) so that I can post them when back in Wi-Fi range.  I’ll set them to drop periodically over the night here and daytime back in the US, so keep checking back for updates.